Chapter 972 — Like a Shadow
Blade of Dawn · Page 3 of 4
The instant Luo Yan's gaze fell upon that shadow, an indescribable, dreamlike murmuring suddenly rose in the room, and a rust-like stench of blood rushed straight into Luo Yan's nostrils. Then a hazy human form swiftly took shape in the air. The rust-colored lines and the shadow on the floor all connected to that form, faintly and indistinctly, and a hoarse, barely intelligible voice rose from within "it," tearing at Luo Yan's eardrums: "Augustus..."
"Malм Dunit," Luo Yan said, his face like ice, his black eyes fixed deathly on the bizarrely appearing figure. He rubbed his fingers slightly, yet the magical alarm stirred no commotion outside; not one of the guards who should have sensed the anomaly and rushed in at once appeared—even so, he showed no sign of panic, only his gaze grew colder than before. "I never thought we would meet under such circumstances, old friend."
"Nor did I think you would go so far down the road of defying the gods..." the hazy shadow rasped, its form growing a little more solid. "I once thought it was merely a passing whim, that you wanted only to play some game of 'counterbalancing' as in times past. I never thought you had been utterly blinded, unable even to see the guidance of the true path—how deeply regrettable, my old friend..."
"This is not the same as the 'counterbalancing' of the past, Malм," Luo Yan said in a low voice. "This is no longer a question of worldly power and interest. Your Church has gone wrong, your faith has gone wrong, your Lord has gone wrong—you are sliding toward the strange and the dark. To the Empire, you are no longer a threat but a scourge."
Such words thoroughly enraged the shadow. It suddenly reared high, and a flood of indescribable murmurs and layer upon layer of rust-colored halos instantly filled the entire room. It roared aloud: "Enough! You have fallen into miserable heresy, and guiding you has indeed been a waste of time—let the Lord's power help you regain your senses!"
Faced with the pressure that abruptly increased upon him, Luo Yan merely watched coldly ahead. He did not retreat; instead he stepped forward. "As I thought... From your state, you have most likely been transformed into something like a wraith or a revenant. In such circumstances, expecting you to retain your reason was indeed a vain hope."
Malм Dunit's shadow seemed not to hear the mockery. He merely raised both hands high, and the rust-colored surge in the room bore down upon Luo Yan: "Sinner! Face the Lord's judgment!"
"You miscalculated one thing," Luo Yan raised his head and said calmly, watching Malм's shadow. "The Augustuses, cursed by the gods for two hundred years, have never feared any so-called 'Lord.'"
He closed his eyes slightly, and when he opened them again, endless starlight had already surfaced in those deep black eyes.
The next second, everything in the reception hall was engulfed by the surging starlight—walls, roof, furnishings... all of it swiftly melted and dissolved within the starlight. A scene of extraordinary splendor, a starry sky such as appears only in human dreams and fantasies, swallowed everything, and with ease swallowed the projection of Malм that was calling upon the God of War's divine power—the latter had time only to let out a shrill howl and a roar of disbelief: "...You dare!"
The resplendent starry sky drowned out Malм's words. Those bright points of light began slowly to rotate within the purple-black smoke, taking on a grotesque, chaotic, bewildering aspect. Luo Yan Augustus stood at the center of this "chaotic starry sky," becoming the pivot around which all the stars revolved.
Listening to the final howl left behind by Malм's projection, he merely sighed faintly: "It does not take much courage to kill a monster."